7 ms·

I’m as pro-EU as they come, but if Brexit taught me one thing, it’s: when you make decisions like this, you need a stable popular majority. Otherwise the “fool

by moomin 2y ago

I’m as pro-EU as they come, but if Brexit taught me one thing, it’s: when you make decisions like this, you need a stable popular majority. Otherwise the “fool all the people some of the time” crowd will see an opportunity.

rich_sasha 2y ago
UK went in on a stable majority in a referendum in 1975 (or rather one to confirm whether to remain) and won with a whopping 67% support. So even that isn't a guarantee.
- FirmwareBurner 2y ago
  EU of 1975 was a different beast than EU of 2025. Back then it was just a treaty for free trade and movement, that's it, now it's bureaucratic monstrosity ruling over its members without the people having representation.
  - rich_sasha 2y ago
    Do you live in a EU country? EU rules are generally good things: rule of law, sane deficit and debt rules etc. And in practice states have a lot of sway. I would say in all areas of governance, post-Brexit the quality of government has decreased, despite throwing off the yoke of EU. And UK has one of the more professional civil service bodies out there.
    - FirmwareBurner 2y ago
      >Do you live in a EU country? I do. >EU rules are generally good things: rule of law, sane deficit and debt rules etc Those are all very obscure "rules" And we had such rules even without the EU. > And in practice states have a lot of sway. How do states not do what Ursula v.d. Leyen says? What is their say in the matter? Or more importantly, what's their citizens' say in the matter? Since citizens did not elect her to be their representative. >post-Brexit the quality of government has decreased, That's because their government is incompetent, not because they left the EU.
  - poisonborz 2y ago
    How could 27 independent member states - instead of one federated state, which, by definition, a "bureucratic monstrosity" - compete on the world stage?
  - chithanh 2y ago
    > Back then it was just a treaty for free trade and movement, that's it Not at all. Maybe you are thinking of EFTA, not EU. Or you are just revisionist. EU was never just about free trade. Back when it was founded as ECSC it was about maintaining peace and putting community interest over national interest. Quite soon after the UK joined, environmental regulations took hold that forced it to stop being the "Dirty man of Europe". Brexit opponents rightly feared that this would return after leaving the EU. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/03/brexit-would-return-britain-to-being-dirty-man-of-europe https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/03/brexit-w...
  - iknowstuff 2y ago
    https://elections.europa.eu/en/how-elections-work/ https://elections.europa.eu/en/how-elections-work/
- lucraft 2y ago
  A big win, but not so stable - IIRC within a few years of this referendum the polls had swung back to about 2/3 against membership of the EC, where it remained for a long time.
  - tfourb 2y ago
    Stable majorities rely on a country's political and media elite to behave somewhat responsibly. In the UK, the EU became a welcome punching bag that every negative domestic feeling and development could be pinned on. That's a quick way to destroy even the most positive of associations and is at the root of the Brexit disaster (and the anti-EU sentiment in other countries like Germany).
  - rich_sasha 2y ago
    True, of course. But how else would you gauge the stability of a majority? I would have thought the size of it is the main proxy.
- mytailorisrich 2y ago
  The issue was the EU expansion to the East starting in 2004. Restrictions on free movements were too weak and the UK was the only country to choose not to impose any (along with Ireland). This created a huge influc of Eastern Europeans into the UK, which resulted in a surge of support for abolising, or at least strongly limiting, free movement. Then, fate struck and Merkel had the "good idea" to unilaterally have an open border policy towards Middle Eastern "refugees" right before the Brexit referendum... The rest, as they say, is history.
  - rich_sasha 2y ago
    It's a funny one. The average Brit was financially better off with all these Eastern Europeans coming in and doing jobs in short supply. Around me in the UK, most shops, restaurants, preschools and many more establishments are short-staffed. This is also the real reason why migration numbers are off the charts - the vacuum of business needs sucks people in. And yet the Brits don't seem to want these people. Fine - their country, their right. But instead, free of the yoke of the EU, they got themselves lots of immigrants from far abroad, while doctor and nurse shortages abound. I guess sometimes it's hard to get the thing you want, and not the consequences of it.
    - anotherhue 2y ago
      I think you're conflating the desires of businesses with the desires of people. Every local shop seemed to have a Polish person on the till back then and it was a real culture shock for most. Would they have been worse off if the position went unfilled? Perhaps, but I can also say as a then teenager looking for summer work I lost access to starter jobs.
      - rich_sasha 2y ago
        On average, I should have said. In terms of GDP per capita, budget size, etc. But or course, that doesn't mean it was uniformly better, it can't have been.
    - moomin 2y ago
spwa4 2y ago
The EU has lost almost every direct vote over joining. And let's just not talk about what happened with the initial formation of the EU. It involved a democracy sending commando forces kidnapping EU politicians to execute them. But most famously: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Dutch_European_Constitution_referendum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Dutch_European_Constituti... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_French_European_Constitution_referendum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_French_European_Constitut... (look at the list of all referenda in those pages, because this wasn't just the Netherlands and France rejecting the EU) Note almost all the referendums that were planned, were canceled. Any honest person should point out: they were canceled because the odds of the referendum passing was negligible. Of course, the EU immediately went against the obvious will of the voters through the treaty of Lisbon. Needless to say, as per usual, the EU makes sure it's popular with politicians (e.g. special tax-exempt status, BUT full social benefits, for any EU personnel. Plus many other things, including an excellent restaurant). So there was a long and thorough discussion in the NL parliament on how to override the will of the voters. Just like, in this case, the party in parliament is bluntly stating they're looking for a way to get membership approved knowing full well a majority is against it. There's yet another reason I'd be wary: the poorer an EU citizen is, the more likely they're to vote against EU. Given the economic performance of the EU of the last 10 years I would expect ... and I do see recent election results (near-majorities for the extreme right, and growth for extreme-left parties that also aren't helpful, in both France and Germany) The EU itself is extremely frustrated about these events, because the whole point of the "EU constitution" that became the Treaty of Lisbon was to trade a bit of EU power for increased legitimacy through a popular Europe-wide constitution. After forcing through the treaty of Lisbon ... the net result of it was less legitimacy instead of more, and less power for the EU executive. They are pretty frustrated since the EU executive actually fulfills a LOT of government functions of the member states. Reality is that for ~70 years the people of the EU have rejected the EU the vast majority of chances they got. Politicians have seen it, imho correctly, as a necessity. Even a country like Germany cannot reasonably negotiate as equals with something like the US, Russia or China, to say nothing of countries like Luxembourgh or Serbia. I guarantee you that while Norway's politicians want to join the EU, they are very unlikely to actually commit to a fair vote to join the bloc.
- 2y ago
ralfn 2y ago
I think there are three preconditions that helped brexit happen: - it's much easier to influence politics in English than in Norwegian (or Dutch or Greek, etc.). The language can act as a protective barrier making it obvious which message is from the 'out' group and which is from the 'in' group. - there was a lot of money invested by foreign actors in into influencing brexit because the UK is a large economy. The RoI is there. - UK joining the EU came in tandem with the end of the Imperial times. The significance of the UK and it's economy is now proportional to their population. On the way down people are always ready to hear about scapegoats. Norway has none of these things. Culturally well protected, not big enough to be a priority in influences and they went from poverty to wealthy in the same time. On the other hand. Imperial times are making a comeback.

by moomin 2y ago

rich_sasha 2y ago

UK went in on a stable majority in a referendum in 1975 (or rather one to confirm whether to remain) and won with a whopping 67% support. So even that isn't a guarantee.

FirmwareBurner 2y ago
EU of 1975 was a different beast than EU of 2025. Back then it was just a treaty for free trade and movement, that's it, now it's bureaucratic monstrosity ruling over its members without the people having representation.
- rich_sasha 2y ago
  Do you live in a EU country? EU rules are generally good things: rule of law, sane deficit and debt rules etc. And in practice states have a lot of sway. I would say in all areas of governance, post-Brexit the quality of government has decreased, despite throwing off the yoke of EU. And UK has one of the more professional civil service bodies out there.
  - FirmwareBurner 2y ago
    >Do you live in a EU country? I do. >EU rules are generally good things: rule of law, sane deficit and debt rules etc Those are all very obscure "rules" And we had such rules even without the EU. > And in practice states have a lot of sway. How do states not do what Ursula v.d. Leyen says? What is their say in the matter? Or more importantly, what's their citizens' say in the matter? Since citizens did not elect her to be their representative. >post-Brexit the quality of government has decreased, That's because their government is incompetent, not because they left the EU.
- poisonborz 2y ago
  How could 27 independent member states - instead of one federated state, which, by definition, a "bureucratic monstrosity" - compete on the world stage?
- chithanh 2y ago
  > Back then it was just a treaty for free trade and movement, that's it Not at all. Maybe you are thinking of EFTA, not EU. Or you are just revisionist. EU was never just about free trade. Back when it was founded as ECSC it was about maintaining peace and putting community interest over national interest. Quite soon after the UK joined, environmental regulations took hold that forced it to stop being the "Dirty man of Europe". Brexit opponents rightly feared that this would return after leaving the EU. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/03/brexit-would-return-britain-to-being-dirty-man-of-europe https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/03/brexit-w...
- iknowstuff 2y ago
  https://elections.europa.eu/en/how-elections-work/ https://elections.europa.eu/en/how-elections-work/
lucraft 2y ago
A big win, but not so stable - IIRC within a few years of this referendum the polls had swung back to about 2/3 against membership of the EC, where it remained for a long time.
- tfourb 2y ago
  Stable majorities rely on a country's political and media elite to behave somewhat responsibly. In the UK, the EU became a welcome punching bag that every negative domestic feeling and development could be pinned on. That's a quick way to destroy even the most positive of associations and is at the root of the Brexit disaster (and the anti-EU sentiment in other countries like Germany).
- rich_sasha 2y ago
  True, of course. But how else would you gauge the stability of a majority? I would have thought the size of it is the main proxy.
mytailorisrich 2y ago
The issue was the EU expansion to the East starting in 2004. Restrictions on free movements were too weak and the UK was the only country to choose not to impose any (along with Ireland). This created a huge influc of Eastern Europeans into the UK, which resulted in a surge of support for abolising, or at least strongly limiting, free movement. Then, fate struck and Merkel had the "good idea" to unilaterally have an open border policy towards Middle Eastern "refugees" right before the Brexit referendum... The rest, as they say, is history.
- rich_sasha 2y ago
  It's a funny one. The average Brit was financially better off with all these Eastern Europeans coming in and doing jobs in short supply. Around me in the UK, most shops, restaurants, preschools and many more establishments are short-staffed. This is also the real reason why migration numbers are off the charts - the vacuum of business needs sucks people in. And yet the Brits don't seem to want these people. Fine - their country, their right. But instead, free of the yoke of the EU, they got themselves lots of immigrants from far abroad, while doctor and nurse shortages abound. I guess sometimes it's hard to get the thing you want, and not the consequences of it.
  - anotherhue 2y ago
    I think you're conflating the desires of businesses with the desires of people. Every local shop seemed to have a Polish person on the till back then and it was a real culture shock for most. Would they have been worse off if the position went unfilled? Perhaps, but I can also say as a then teenager looking for summer work I lost access to starter jobs.
    - rich_sasha 2y ago
      On average, I should have said. In terms of GDP per capita, budget size, etc. But or course, that doesn't mean it was uniformly better, it can't have been.
  - moomin 2y ago

spwa4 2y ago

The EU has lost almost every direct vote over joining. And let's just not talk about what happened with the initial formation of the EU. It involved a democracy sending commando forces kidnapping EU politicians to execute them. But most famously: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Dutch_European_Constitution_referendum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Dutch_European_Constituti... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_French_European_Constitution_referendum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_French_European_Constitut... (look at the list of all referenda in those pages, because this wasn't just the Netherlands and France rejecting the EU) Note almost all the referendums that were planned, were canceled. Any honest person should point out: they were canceled because the odds of the referendum passing was negligible. Of course, the EU immediately went against the obvious will of the voters through the treaty of Lisbon. Needless to say, as per usual, the EU makes sure it's popular with politicians (e.g. special tax-exempt status, BUT full social benefits, for any EU personnel. Plus many other things, including an excellent restaurant). So there was a long and thorough discussion in the NL parliament on how to override the will of the voters. Just like, in this case, the party in parliament is bluntly stating they're looking for a way to get membership approved knowing full well a majority is against it. There's yet another reason I'd be wary: the poorer an EU citizen is, the more likely they're to vote against EU. Given the economic performance of the EU of the last 10 years I would expect ... and I do see recent election results (near-majorities for the extreme right, and growth for extreme-left parties that also aren't helpful, in both France and Germany) The EU itself is extremely frustrated about these events, because the whole point of the "EU constitution" that became the Treaty of Lisbon was to trade a bit of EU power for increased legitimacy through a popular Europe-wide constitution. After forcing through the treaty of Lisbon ... the net result of it was less legitimacy instead of more, and less power for the EU executive. They are pretty frustrated since the EU executive actually fulfills a LOT of government functions of the member states. Reality is that for ~70 years the people of the EU have rejected the EU the vast majority of chances they got. Politicians have seen it, imho correctly, as a necessity. Even a country like Germany cannot reasonably negotiate as equals with something like the US, Russia or China, to say nothing of countries like Luxembourgh or Serbia. I guarantee you that while Norway's politicians want to join the EU, they are very unlikely to actually commit to a fair vote to join the bloc.

2y ago

ralfn 2y ago

I think there are three preconditions that helped brexit happen: - it's much easier to influence politics in English than in Norwegian (or Dutch or Greek, etc.). The language can act as a protective barrier making it obvious which message is from the 'out' group and which is from the 'in' group. - there was a lot of money invested by foreign actors in into influencing brexit because the UK is a large economy. The RoI is there. - UK joining the EU came in tandem with the end of the Imperial times. The significance of the UK and it's economy is now proportional to their population. On the way down people are always ready to hear about scapegoats. Norway has none of these things. Culturally well protected, not big enough to be a priority in influences and they went from poverty to wealthy in the same time. On the other hand. Imperial times are making a comeback.